Mince garlic cloves and chiles. Add all ingredients except chicken to large mixing bowl. Stir with whisk or fork until well blended. Add chicken parts. Mix with fork until chicken is well coated. Cover and let marinate in fridge for 12 hours or overnight. Keep marinade.

Place chicken on grill skin side up. Grill chicken on outdoor grill for 15 minutes using low-medium heat. Flip chicken parts over and grill for another 10 minutes. Baste every 10 minutes with reserved. Check heat with meat thermometer after 20 minutes of grilling. Chicken breasts should have an internal temperature of 165-to-170 degrees.)

TIDBITS

1) “Sugar, Sugar” was big hit song for the Archies in 1969. The song “Piri Piri” was not a hit song for the Chickens in 1976. The Chickens had the great bad luck to form in the start of a nasty civil war Fellow Mozabicans simply didn’t have the money to buy records. And all the radio stations were monopolized to provide propaganda for the warring sides.

2) Piri Piri reunited in 2012. They played minor gigs in Mozambique, when by sheer good luck they landed a concert date in Wrigley Field, Chicago for November 3, 2016. Unfortunately, everyone was watching the Cubs win their first World Series in 108 and so, no one showed. I’m happy to report though, that the group has landed a permanent engagement at the South Pole’s research station where the saying “Party all night” really means something.

While chicken stock/coconut milk mix simmers, cook egg noodles and rice stick according to instructions on packages. (Will you need extra pots? Will you be cleaning pots after this meal? Yes, you will!) Drain noodles after they are done.

Place an equal amount of noodles into serving bowls. Add an equal amount of chicken stock/coconut oil/shrimp/tofu mix into bowls. Peel hard-boiled eggs and cut them into halves. Cut lime into 6 slices. Top bowls with hard-boiled egg halves, lime slices, and bean sprouts.

Combine egg/chiles with sausage/cheese/tomatoes mix. Place ⅓ cup of combined mixture on middle, bottom third of tortillas. Fold bottom of tortilla over mixture. Fold in sides until they touch. Roll up tortillas from the bottom to make burrito.

Put egg in small dish. Whisk egg. Brush all burritos with whisked egg. Bake at 400 degrees for 12 minutes or until egg on top of burritos is golden brown and burritos begin to brown.

2) The mighty sausage was first mentioned in the play “The Sausage” written by Epimarchus a really, really long time ago. The play got lost, however, and culinary drama disappeared for a really long time. (Note: really, really long time is longer than a really long time.)

3) Aristophanes, the dude from 5th-century B.C., mentioned sausages in one of his plays. Of course, mentioning sausages is not as good or powerful as writing an entire play about this amazing, meaty delicacy.

4) Culinary tragedy struck in the fourth century A.D., when the Catholic Church banned the eating of sausages as being sinful.

5) Church leaders had noticed the barbarians hordes that were carving up the Roman Empire ate sausages at their festivals. Therefore, sausages were ungodlyl.

6) Historians, often wonder why such spirited warfare existed between the barbarians and the Roman Empire as both peoples possessed sausages. Why fight someone else for something you already have?

7) The Catholic Church, over the years, relaxed its stance on sausage eating, banning it only on Fridays.

8) Arabs burst out of the Arabian peninsula in 632 A.D.. Fired by strong religious belief and fortified with beef sausages, they conquered North Africa, Spain, Sicily, and the Middle East.

9) Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg. Normal historians take this to be the start of the Reformation which split Christian church into Catholic and Protestant ones. Culinary historians speculate that if Martin Luther had only been able to eat sausages without guilt, he would have been devouring this wonderful entree to his heart’s content. Full of sausage-induced good will, he couldn’t have possibly mustered up the rage to write even two theses, let alone ninety five. The Christian church would still be one and horrors of the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648, fought between Protestant and Catholic Europe would never have happened.

10) Sausage-eating Protestants and six-out-of-seven-days-a-week Catholics built vast colonial empires starting from the 1500s. These empires fell apart during the mid-twentieth century when the European nations switched from consuming vast amounts of sausages to more trendy things such as sushi, salmon quesadillas, and specialty coffees.

12) Vatican II led many Catholics to believe that eating meat on Fridays is okay. The world has not had a major war since then.

13) “To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.”
– German chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898).

14) “War without fire is like sausages without mustard.”
– King Henry V.

15) “The dog’s kennel is no place to keep a sausage.”
-Danish proverb

16) “Yum.”
-me

– Chef Paul

My cookbook, Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World, and novels are available in paperpack or Kindle on amazon.com

Remove seeds from serrano chiles if you desire a milder salsa. Put chiles, garlic, onion, tomatoes, and oil in baking dish. Stir until garlic, onion, and tomatoes are well coated with oil. Roast in oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

1) May, 1997, was National Salsa Month. Our officials have too much time on their hands.

2) In 2003, Texas declared tortilla chips and salsa to be the Official State Snack. The Texas government has too much time on its hands.

3) Pace Foods uses over 20 million pounds of hot peppers every year. That’s a lot of peppers or maybe just one huge pepper. Can you imagine a pepper that big? If you managed to eat it you’d need a really huge glass of milk to coat the pain receptors in your throat.

4) It would take a really big cow to give enough milk to fill that glass in tidbit 3).

5) Tomatoes and serrano chiles are not vegetables. They are fruits. So is a banana.

6) “Sometimes a banana is just a banana.” – Sigmund Freud. Freud would have been greatly interested in a dream about a twenty-million-pound serrano chile.

7) Oh, and some historians think Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean to get away from lutefisk.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put all ingredients in large mixing bowl. Combine ingredients with blender set on “cake.” Put baking cups in cupcake pan. Pour mix into baking cups until each cup is 2/3 full.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until fork inserted in muffin comes out clean and easily. Remove baking cups filled with muffin and let cool for five minutes.

Spread butter on top of muffin if desired.

TIDBITS

1) I’ve always enjoyed the phrase, “eggs lightly beaten.” Are there recipes with the phrases, “eggs thoroughly defeated,” or “eggs humiliated and thirsting for revenge?”

2) My baking powder’s brand is Clabber GirlTM. My mother used this brand. My grandmother used it as well. Clabber GirlTM has been around since 1879. Their website boasts of a peanut-free facility. Why would there be peanuts in a baking-powder factory?

3) However, Southwest AirlinesTM informs us the peanuts in their tiny snack bags are made in a facility where peanuts are present.

– Chef Paul

My cookbook, Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World, and novels are available in paperpack or Kindle on amazon.com

Mix top ingredients thoroughly by hand. Make patties. Fry patties on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, flipping them once. Wrap patty with a leaf of romaine lettuce. Wash hands before greeting dinner guests, likable or not.

TIDBITS

1) Steve Martin was a romaine-lettuce salesman appearing on a Saturday Night Live takeoff of Family Feud.

2) Thailand used to be called Siam. The musical, The King and I, was set in Thailand. The non-fiction book, on which it was based, is much more serious in tone.

3) Thailand was never conquered by the Europeans.

4) At one time, Thailand’s new army officers were required to master golf.

5) Golf is a good way to learn cussing.

6) There is no 6).

– Chef Paul

My cookbook, Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World, and novels are available in paperpack or Kindle on amazon.com

Defrost chicken by leaving it out on the stove for hours. Mince chicken in food processor. Mince onion. Mix chicken, onion, tomatoes, salsa, cumin, chili, poultry spice, and green chiles. Cook on medium-to-high heat until chicken is done. Add green chiles, refried beans, mayonnaise or sour cream, and grate cheese and cook until beans are hot. The mayonnaise or sour cream makes the refried beans much smoother. Milk has the same effect. (Now you know. Your world has just gotten sunnier and so will all the people you will meet in the next twenty-four hours.)

Heat the tortillas in the microwave for 20-30 seconds. This makes them warm and much easier to roll and fold without breaking. To make the burrito, put 2-3 tablespoons of the above chicken mixture 1/3 of the way down the tortilla. Fold the top of the tortilla over the mixture. Fold in the sides of the tortilla as far as you can. They must cover the mixture. While keeping the sides folded in, roll the tortilla as far as you can. You are now a burrito whiz. Olé.

TIDBITS

1) “Ito” at the end of Spanish words means the particular thing is “little.” So, “burrito” means little “burro.”

2) Judge Ito presided over the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

3) I have a friend who lives near the house where the murder took place. The place looks nice.

– Chef Paul

My cookbook, Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World, and novels are available in paperpack or Kindle on amazon.com

POW-MEX CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP

Pour the condensed chicken-noodle soup into a sauce pan. Fill the soup cans with any water. (You may use Norwegian glacier water if you feel the need to impress gourmet friends.) Pour the water into the pan.

Don’t read this sentence.

Cut turkey dogs into 1/2″ slices. Add hot-dog slices, Cotija cheese, green chiles and Four Mexican cheeses. Heat to boiling and serve. Stir frequently to keep the cheese from burning on the bottom.

This is family favorite and also death to nasty cold bugs lurking in your throat or sinus.

TIDBITS

1) “Pow-Mex” is a fusion between Powegian food and Mexican.

2) Poway is the name of my fair city.

3) At one, time Mexico owned the land on which Poway stands.

4) Green chiles spice up and spiff up any food.

5) Poway has its own train park complete with a 1903 Baldwin steam engine.

6) How many of us survived on condensed soups in college?

7) Poway has two live theaters and one bowling alley. It also boasts of a low crime rate and a superb school system. I don’t know if that is a coincidence.

– Chef Paul

My cookbook, Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World, and novels are available in paperpack or Kindle on amazon.com

Shred as much lettuce as you like. (You have nearly an hour. Or you could employ this time conjugating Portuguese verbs, always handy when dining in Portugal.)

Meanwhile back at the range, add refried beans and sour cream in pot. Mix Cook at medium heat for about 5 minutes until mixture is hot and creamy. Cover and simmer at low until chiles have sat for 1 hour.